Sports Update » Rockets/NBAhttp://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate
Blogging special sports events and storiesTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:40:52 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.3Will the Rockets make the playoffs? If not, will you blame Lowry?http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2012/04/will-the-rockets-make-the-playoffs-if-not-will-you-blame-lowry/
http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2012/04/will-the-rockets-make-the-playoffs-if-not-will-you-blame-lowry/#commentsWed, 18 Apr 2012 16:19:42 +0000http://blog.chron.com/jeromesolomon/?p=2618So now you all are going in on Kyle Lowry?

Come on Rockets fans. This team is what it is and has been for the most part.

They aren’t losing because Lowry ruined the chemistry when he returned from a month off with a bacterial infection?

Kyle Lowry is back, but can he and the Rockets reverse this late-season slump? (Melissa Phillip/Chronicle)

They simply have picked a bad time to start playing poorly, shooting poorly and defending worse lately, especially in the second half.

They are about where they were projected to be (even by the team brass) before the season.

There have been times throughout the season when they looked better than they are and gave you hope they could be better than their parts. And there have been times they have looked worse than their parts. The last week for instance.

This is about who they are, and they might be headed to the 14th draft selection for the third straight year.

But lay the blame at Lowry’s feet. Remember, they went only 9-6 when he was out. It’s not like they were threatening to be one of the league’s best teams.

At one point with Lowry they were 21-14, but lost five straight before he went into the hospital.

Can they right the ship? No doubt. But the playoff race is likely to come down to the final game. Sure would help if Marcus Camby’s and Samuel Dalembert’s back issues went away for the next few weeks.

If the Rockets win three of their final five games (say, in New Orleans on Thursday and against the Hornets again next week, and Golden State at home on Saturday) they finish at 35-31, and probably get into the playoffs. If they win four of five, I’d say they are definitely in.

Jonathan Feigen says if Houston goes 4-1 (with a win over Dallas tonight) and ties with the Suns, they earn the fourth tiebreaker over Phoenix.

Phoenix, which has the same 32-29 record as Houston, has four home games remaining. Don’t be surprised if the Suns lose tonight to Oklahoma City and tomorrow to the Clippers. If that happens, even if you give the Suns the season finale against the Spurs, who’ll likely be resting players, can they beat Denver and win at Utah next Wednesday?

Utah (32-30) seems to be more of a threat. It has only four games remaining, including three at home. After hosting Portland tonight, the Jazz get Orlando, Phoenix and Portland in Sal Lake City, with none of the games being a back-to-back situation.

If Utah and Houston end up tied, the Jazz hold the tiebreaker with a 2-1 edge in the season series.

Do you think the Rockets will make the playoffs? Vote in the poll and leave your thoughts in the comments.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.
]]>http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2012/04/will-the-rockets-make-the-playoffs-if-not-will-you-blame-lowry/feed/35Mavs sweep Lakers, and Rockets can only dream; Kobe vs. MJ and NBA fight nighthttp://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/05/mavs-sweep-lakers-and-rockets-can-only-dream-kobe-vs-jordan-and-nba-fight-night/
http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/05/mavs-sweep-lakers-and-rockets-can-only-dream-kobe-vs-jordan-and-nba-fight-night/#commentsMon, 09 May 2011 14:54:05 +0000http://blog.chron.com/jeromesolomon/?p=1004Three things we learned – as if we didn’t know them (and you should have, because I have told you all of them before) – from the Mavericks’ broom job on the Lakers:

1. The Rockets are a long, long, long way from the big boys of the NBA, heck, even the big boys of the state.

2. Kobe Bryant is a long way from Michael Jordan.

3. Violence is never the answer, except those times when violence is the answer.

* As much as Rockets fans love to dog the Mavericks for coming up short in the playoffs, tell me you wouldn’t trade the last decade of Rockets play with the last decade of the Mavericks. Would you take Dallas for the next five years, or the Rockets?

As for the future. Well, Houston finished only 14 games behind the Mavericks this season, but if the Rockets hire Kevin McHale and Patrick Patterson does a Kevin McHale-like jump they could catch the Mavericks in no time.

McHale averaged only 10 points and 4.4 rebounds, and started only one game as a rookie, before going on to a Hall of Fame career. While McHale joined a roster that had NBA stars on it, Patterson was on a team that didn’t even have an All-Star, but he averaged 6.3 points and 3.8 rebounds a game in limited action this season.

I think he can be pretty good. McHale good? Probably not, he showed flashes of All-Star potential. Regardless, the Rockets have some serious retooling to do to match the big boys.

I’m not one of those who have criticized Daryl Morey for making so many moves. If you have a less-than-stellar roster and don’t make moves, you’re not trying. Some may see it as shuffling around pawns on a chessboard, but it’s better than sitting still. The key, as Morey always says, is luring a star to town.

The Rockets have wanted to get Chris Paul for years. That desire hasn’t changed. Of course, I’m still waiting for Thelma from Good Times to holla at me.

* More and more, lately, youngsters have started to get the notion that Kobe Bryant is in the same class as Michael Jordan. Hey, Bryant is a spectacular player with exceptional basketball skills, but Jordan was and will always be better. Period.

I’m not even willing to concede the generally-held belief that Bryant is a better outside shooter than Jordan. Jordan played in a different era, when the 3-point line wasn’t the path to greatness that it now is, so without that emphasis on the shot, he didn’t use it too often, especially early in his career. But the season he did shoot a bunch of 3s, his percentage was better than Bryant’s has ever been.

Sunday’s wipeout was the third time in Bryant’s career that he has been on a team that was swept out of the playoffs. No, it’s not all his fault, but my goodness, if you want to be in the discussion of being the all-time best player, you find a way to win a game against the Mavericks or at least you go down swinging.

If we erase Kobe’s first three seasons – the kid came directly from high school to the NBA, unlike Jordan, who spent three years at North Carolina – then this is the first time he has been swept when he was the lead dog (though he averaged 20 points a game on the ’99 team, his third season on a team, that was swept). But LA has been taken out 4-1 three other times in his career.

It’s not just the blowouts, but how he goes out. Bryant had 17 points (13 in the first quarter) and one assist in 37 minutes of the series-clinching loss to the Mavs. He had 22 points (on 7-of-22 shooting) and one assist in 43 minutes the last time the Lakers lost a clinching game (to Boston in 2008). In 2006 the Lakers lost to Phoenix by 31 in a first-round clincher, with Bryant scoring 24 points with one assist. Notice a pattern?

In 2003 Los Angeles lost to San Antonio by 28 points in the final game, with Bryant, who averaged 35 points a game in the first five contests, bowing out meekly with only 20. Kobe has gone down without much fight on several occasions.

Jordan was never on a team that was swept in a four-game series, and on only one that lost in five games (’88). He was swept twice by the Celtics in three-game series in his second and third seasons in the league. In the first one, he averaged 43.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.7 assists, and in the second one he averaged 35.7 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists. The man went down swinging.

Kobe is great. Saying he isn’t Michael Jordan is not an insult.

* Finally, the NBA in the 1980s was probably too rough and too physical. But it was rarely dirty. Why? In part because guys who did what Andrew Bynum pulled late in the game against the Mavericks would have had to fight his way off the court. These days, with everybody facing suspensions, it would have been stupid for a Maverick to go after Bynum following the cheapest of cheap shots on J.J. Barea. But Bynum needed to get his behind whipped for that. Yeah, he may be suspended for a few games at the start of next season, but if he knows he would have to squabble for making such a punk move, odds are he wouldn’t have made it.

]]>http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/05/mavs-sweep-lakers-and-rockets-can-only-dream-kobe-vs-jordan-and-nba-fight-night/feed/52Smart people, dumb decisions: Asking Adelman to babysit a coach-in-waiting was idiotichttp://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/05/smart-people-dumb-decisions-asking-adelman-to-babysit-a-coach-in-waiting-was-idiotic/
http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/05/smart-people-dumb-decisions-asking-adelman-to-babysit-a-coach-in-waiting-was-idiotic/#commentsTue, 03 May 2011 14:33:40 +0000http://blog.chron.com/jeromesolomon/?p=984So Jonathan Feigen tells us more of the story behind why Rick Adelman and Daryl Morey couldn’t work it out.

If you want a divorce, just say you want a divorce. Don’t ask for an open marriage. Don’t try to move in a pretty young coed to spice things up. Just pack up and leave.

At the risk of again bringing the Internet drones who worship at the feet of Morey back again – demanding that Adelman to put a coach-in-waiting on his staff has to have been one of the dumbest ideas ever by of one of the smartest men most of us know.

(Don’t take the “worship at the feet” thing too seriously, folks. Morey finds the “In Daryl We Believe” sentiment to be almost as ludicrous as I do. I don’t know when the phrase was first used in sports, but the strongest in the last decade is “In Bill We Trust,” by Patriots fans pointing to Bill Belichick. Don’t make me go Lloyd Bentsen on you people.)

I’ve said many times I am against the coach-in-waiting concept in general anyway. There are too many factors to consider when hiring a coach to hire one before you are technically looking for one.

And that is even in situations in which the candidate is a hot commodity, as in the case with the University of Texas and former defensive coordinator Will Muschamp.

No way could you convince me that UT would have trouble finding a qualified candidate for any position, so it shouldn’t have to offer a future head coaching position to anybody on the planet, let alone an assistant coach.

You’re creating a soap opera effect for no good reason.

This thing with the Rockets goes a step or two further. We’re talking about hiring an outsider to replace a head coach (and replace somebody else on his staff first), while the coach is still coaching.

If Morey wants a flunky to do his dirty work, then hire the flunky as the head coach.

If he wants said flunky to hang around Adelman to learn how he does things, he would be better off giving him tapes of all the games and practices and letting him learn from them.

But forcing a guy onto a staff while pushing aside a loyal assistant the head coach believes is doing a fine job – if that is indeed what Morey suggested – is … idiotic.

No sane coach would agree to such terms.

Rick Adelman might be getting up in years, but last I could tell, he isn’t having sanity issues.

]]>http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/05/smart-people-dumb-decisions-asking-adelman-to-babysit-a-coach-in-waiting-was-idiotic/feed/56Texans will draft fewer players than Rockets will interview for head coachhttp://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/04/texans-will-draft-fewer-players-than-rockets-will-interview-for-head-coach/
http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/04/texans-will-draft-fewer-players-than-rockets-will-interview-for-head-coach/#commentsThu, 28 Apr 2011 16:05:19 +0000http://blog.chron.com/jeromesolomon/2011/04/texans-will-draft-fewer-players-than-rockets-will-interview-for-head-coach/On the surface, the Rockets’ coach search seems a bit over-the-top, with upwards of a dozen names linked to possible interviews.

It is so nutty that when Shaun Bijani announced on Sports Radio 610 last night that the Rockets were interviewing Zan Tabak, I didn’t even blink.

A couple seconds later, he said it was a joke.

That’s how crazy it seems. Any name linked to the position doesn’t surprise me. Even if Tabak is running a night club in Croatia or something these days.

Look, it would be nice if the Rockets had a coach in mind and went to get him. It could also be bad.

The point is, it doesn’t matter how the coach is hired, whether they interview 20 guys and a couple of women or just two. All that matters is getting the right guy.

And it doesn’t matter who I think would be the best candidate. (Actually, my No. 1 choice, when it became obvious that Rick Adelman was on his way out of town, isn’t even interviewing.)

What matters is Morey finding the guy who best fits what he is looking for and a person he is most comfortable working with.

Now, I will say that it would be a mistake to get a guy who just blindly follows Morey’s ideas and never challenges him on decisions. A good working harmony also involves debate, heck, even dissension.

Morey should be smart enough to know that.

• • •

Owen Daniels and James Casey ran routes and took passes from Dan Orlovsky yesterday morning at Rice.

The Texans’ tight ends said there is little different from what they would be doing were the Texans’ facilities open, save for doing it on the Texans’ practice fields.

• • •

The first round of the NFL Draft is tonight.

You will hear this phrase a thousand times, but there somehow manages to be a debate about it every time it comes up.

“The best player available.”

I have talked to experts on the draft – people who have done it many, many times (successfully and unsuccessfully) – and all agree: the smartest approach is to take the best athlete/football player available. Forget your team needs. Need only matters if the players are ranked equally.

For one, you can never have too many good football players. Plus, the last thing you want is a guy on your roster you think is overpaid because he was over-drafted. You have to look at that rascal everyday.

He wouldn’t necessarily be an underachiever, as he is probably delivering exactly what you expected from him. The problem is, you drafted him in a spot that he can’t live up to.

So, when the Texans are on the board, if the best player is indeed a wide receiver. The smart thing to do (aside from trading the pick, obviously) is to take him. Period.

Drafting an average defender isn’t better than drafting a top-flight wide receiver, and it never will be.

• • •

If the Texans don’t draft at the position you’re thinking they need to, remember, free agency has yet to start.

The two free agent names the Texans should have on their immediate-call list – because I like them and they can play – whenever this legal mess shakes out, which could happen as early as next week:

Nnamdi Asomugha (Oakland): solves one cornerback problem. A high-character guy who would be a perfect fit in the locker room, and brings intelligence, confidence and experience to a secondary (and a defense) that needs all of the above. And, yes, he would be interested in playing in Houston.

Danieal Manning (Chicago): It would be real nice if the new CBA puts the rules as they should be and frees up a player like Manning from being restricted. As with Asomugha, he would bring intelligence, confidence and experience, with speed, strong coverage skills (one of top-ranking safeties in the league last year) and (Bonus! Bonus!) big-time kickoff return skills. And yes, he would be interested in playing in Houston.

]]>http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/04/texans-will-draft-fewer-players-than-rockets-will-interview-for-head-coach/feed/13The Rockets could have won their division … uh huh, uh huhhttp://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/04/the-rockets-could-have-won-their-division-uh-huh-uh-huh/
http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/04/the-rockets-could-have-won-their-division-uh-huh-uh-huh/#commentsMon, 25 Apr 2011 07:38:36 +0000http://blog.chron.com/jeromesolomon/2011/04/the-rockets-could-have-won-their-division-uh-huh-uh-huh/I must say I am having fun reading and answering e-mail from sad-sack Rockets fans who have taken umbrage with my characterization of this season as a last-place season.

“How can you say last place, when we finished with the 14th best record out of 30 teams?”

“We’re in the best division in the NBA, jerk.”

“The ninth-best record in the West isn’t last place, so-called King.”

“Put us in the East, numskull, and we would be in the playoffs.”

Awww, you poor babies. I feel for you, I really do.

Last place stinks doesn’t it? Well, at least it should. But the way some of you want to tell it, the Rockets should throw a parade. Similar to the extravaganza you called for after last year’s grand 42-win campaign.

Even a Rockets’ higher-up called me up and thought about challenging me on the last-place finish, then he looked it up on one of his myriad of charts and graphs and data not released to the public and realized that, golly gee whiz, his team’s record was worse than that of every other team in the division.

Duh. Run those metrics.

They keep records of wins and losses for a reason. The Rockets lost more games than any team in their division, and finished 18 games behind the Spurs. EIGHTEEN GAMES.

And they finished 14 games behind the Mavericks.

Reality check people. That’s how far Houston has to go to become a threat, just in Texas. Heck, were it not for the ridiculous UIL playoff expansion, the Rockets wouldn’t even make to the bi-district round of the high school playoffs.

When a professional team finishes out of the playoffs, it has nothing to celebrate. Absolutely nothing. And last place?

Last place isn’t good, even if you’re in the best division in the NBA.

Technically, the Rockets brought the division down. Mathematically speaking, last-place teams tend to do that. The Southwest Division would have been even stronger with Portland in it.

That’s doesn’t make any sense, King. Portland isn’t even in the “southwest.”

OK, how about Denver? Is that geographically correct enough for you? The Nuggets would have made the Southwest Division stronger, as they too finished with a better record than the Rockets.

Darn, King, you’re not being fair. Can’t you figure out a way to give the Rockets some love for their lovely 43-win season?

OK, OK, OK. How about we swap out the Central Division of the East with the Southwest Division of the West? You know, move the Rockets back to their old stomping ground.

You youngsters don’t know anything about those division battles with the Bullets at the Cap, do you? Those were the days.

The Bullets? Huh? And why are you talking about busting a cap in somebody?

No, Washington used to be the Bullets, and the Bullets used to play in the Capital Center in Landover and they used to be in the same division with the Rockets … forget it.

Basically, I’m just talking about moving the Rockets and the rest of their division to the East. Unfortunately, were that the case, our gerrymandering still wouldn’t work, as the Rocket would still finish in last place in the Central and in ninth place in the conference, just out of the playoffs.

Come on, King. Work with us, please? We’re desperate here. Don’t bring the entire Southwest Division to the East, just move the right teams to get us into the playoffs.

OK, OK, OK. Here we go.

How about a Bicentennial Central Division, as it were, with the Rockets, Bullets, er, I mean Wizards, Cavaliers, New Orleans (as in the Jazz, the ones in Utah now mind you, not the Hornets) and the Hawks? That’s how it used to be.

Yeah, something like that. If the old-school Central Division still existed, the Rockets would have finished second, just one game behind Atlanta.

But think about this, King. If you take into account the extra games they would have had against Cleveland and Washington, and move most of the games against the Jazz to after Jerry Sloan quit, Houston wins that division, right?

Well, I guess.

And you know if the Rockets win the division, they would be trouble in the playoffs. Just like when, uh, what’s his name led that 40-42 team to the Finals.

Moses Malone?

Yeah, Moses. Just like he led us to the Promised Land … hey, isn’t that why we were out of school Friday? … Chuck Hayes could do the same thing. And Kevin Martin sounds almost like Calvin Murphy, but he is taller, right? We could shock the world because we have a better record than that team. And then …

Chronicle file

The Whopper

Hey, slow your roll. You went too far. If you even dreamed that Kevin Martin is better than Calvin Murphy, you need to wake up and apologize.

And forget the W-L records, when Moses parted the Purple Lake in the first round of the playoffs and the Rockets advanced to the Finals for the first time, they were a better team than this year’s bunch.

That last one is one of the Ten Commandments of Basketball: Thou shalt honor the big man. (I know you don’t know who the Whopper is, but trust me, he was the same height as Brad Miller, but were he on this year’s Rockets, they would still be playing.)

Anyway, that Rockets’ team did it from the Western Conference. Remember the West? Where the Rockets finished in last place in their division this year?

The Rockets’ general manager ran around town defending the Rockets’ decision to part ways with Rick Adelman. Some of it was quite entertaining.

I don’t know why he was so defensive. He didn’t do anything wrong. The short version of the story is Adelman wanted to leave and Morey let him go.

Adelman would have stayed under the right circumstances, but those circumstances don’t exist, so there is not much for Morey to explain. Let’s move on.

Other than putting together a last-place team in his fifth season on the job, Morey has been pretty darn good. (Oh, another last-place cheap shot huh King? … Check the standings.)

Morey jumped on my man Fran Blinebury in a radio interview, disputing a couple of things Fran said on Sports Radio 610. With a station full of homers over there, one would think Morey wouldn’t have had to defend himself, but he was passionate about it.

It was fun to see him get so animated. And he made a couple of good points about accuracy.

One thing about Daryl, he gives as good as he takes, and he accepts all criticism (well, almost all) as long as it is fair and accurate. (Of course, he gets to decide what is fair, which is only fair, right?)

Wonder if Daryl thinks it is fair to double-check something he said?

Like his latest take on reporters’ use of the word “assets,” when we describe players. I am not ashamed to admit that I use it all the time. Asset isn’t one of the words I was taught not to ever use. Heck, it isn’t even one of those I was taught to never use in polite company. It’s just a word.

Asset is the word Kevin Martin used to describe the way Rockets’ players felt leading up to the trade deadline.

“I was telling Daryl, going into the season 90 percent of the people on the team felt like a trade asset,” Martin said.

In response, Morey wanted to clear up one thing about players being assets.

“I think they are basketball players,” Morey said. “People use the word assets, I never do. We never say that. These are people.”

Really?

I immediately told Barry Warner and Jonathan Feigen that Morey’s claim was complete … uh … one of those words I was taught never to use in polite company and the Chronicle won’t let me use in this blog, but it rhymes with full mitt.

I figured I would invest 15 minutes this morning to prove my point. If it is as much something that ryhmes with what a catcher has after hauling in a foul ball, that should be plenty time.

In June 2008 (just before the Celtics and Lakers squared off for the NBA title) Morey said he thought the Rockets were one good player from being a championship contender. That player might not join the Rockets in the offseason Feigen reported.

“Don’t judge the team on Oct. 1. We think we’ve got a lot of assets that a lot of teams want — a lot of ways to upgrade,” Morey said.

Later that month, just before the NBA Draft, in a story by Chris Duncan of the Associated Press, Morey talked about the Rockets not likely trading up from its 25th slot.

“Not a lot of home runs at 25. We’re just trying to, if we keep the pick, get who we think is the best player who will help us over time. If we can trade it for an asset, we’ll do it. We’ve got to go with what’s best,” Morey said.

The next week, after the Rockets took Oregon forward Maarty Leunen with the 54th pick, Morey talked abut Leunen’s potential.

“He’ll play on our summer league team,” Morey said. “He’s going to play overseas. He’s someone who we’ll keep the rights to. He’s a shooting, spacing four who we think has a chance down the road. Obviously, he’s been an accomplished player at Oregon in the Pac-10 where they’ve had a lot of success, and we feel like he’s been apart of that. We believe in spacing fours as an important asset.”

The following June, as he prepared for the draft, Morey said the Rockets would like to make a trade to move up. (Later we found out the preferred target was Ricky Rubio.)

“We do like some players high in the draft, where we would think about giving up some player assets,” Morey said.

A couple days later, after the draft, Morey talked about the Rockets having picked up Jermaine Taylor, Chase Budinger and Real Madrid point guard Sergio Llull.

“We feel the two guys who are going to stay in the U.S. are talented guys who might contribute,” Morey said. “We feel like Sergio Llull is an extremely talented point guard, a big point guard, which are hard to find. We feel like he is a real good bet as a trade asset or to bring over some day.”

Last June, after the Rockets drafted Patrick Patterson but made no other moves in the draft, Morey said the team wanted to be careful with its moves on draft night. The year before the Rockets had bought the draft rights to the aforementioned Taylor, Budinger and Llull.

“That factored in, in terms of how aggressive we could be,” Morey said. “We were saving assets to be flexible this summer.”

Now some of those references are probably to draft picks, not real people, but you get the idea.

I would bet if I went through transcripts of Morey news conferences, there are many other times Morey has used the word when referring to people, but there is no need to kick him in his assets over it. People often say things they didn’t realize they said.

This isn’t the O.J. trial with Mark Fuhrman and the N-word. Asset isn’t a bad word. And it is fair to say that it is an appropriate word to use to describe how professional sports franchises treat most of their players.

Maybe it is a good thing that Morey now seems offended by its use.

Perhaps he now believes his use of assets has become a liability.

]]>http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/04/addressing-daryl-moreys-assets/feed/63The Adelman-Rockets divorce was inevitablehttp://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/04/the-adelman-rockets-divorce-was-inevitable/
http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/04/the-adelman-rockets-divorce-was-inevitable/#commentsMon, 18 Apr 2011 23:57:58 +0000http://blog.chron.com/jeromesolomon/2011/04/the-adelman-rockets-divorce-was-inevitable/OK, I guess this is breaking news, but didn’t I tell you two months ago that Rick Adelman’s tenure with the Rockets would likely end in mid-April?

I’m not psychic. How did I know this would happen? Both sides wanted it.

The Rockets won’t find a better head coach than Adelman. Adelman ought to find a better team than the Rockets.

It is simple math: there are, oh, 12 or 13 better teams than the Rockets? And, what, a couple better coaches than Adelman?

There will be more better jobs available for Rick than better coaches available for the Rockets.

As you may know, Adelman is one if my favorite coaches. He is smart, honest and understands how to get the best from his players. I don’t think it was possible for anyone to get more out of the Rockets’ cast of characters the last two seasons. That doesn’t mean the years weren’t disappointing, only that the disappointment wasn’t the coach’s fault.

The Rockets are what they are because of the players they have. You don’t like those players, don’t blame Adelman.

Were I Adelman, I would have wanted out, too. He is 64 and didn’t come here to coach a cast of average players who aren’t good enough to make the playoffs.

Adelman delivered as good a coaching job as the Rockets could get. Houston is lucky he passed through.

]]>http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/04/the-adelman-rockets-divorce-was-inevitable/feed/50Kobe Bryant passes Moses Malone, well, sort ofhttp://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/03/kobe-bryant-passes-moses-malone-well-sort-of/
http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/03/kobe-bryant-passes-moses-malone-well-sort-of/#commentsWed, 09 Mar 2011 17:58:20 +0000http://blog.chron.com/jeromesolomon/2011/03/kobe-bryant-passes-moses-malone-well-sort-of/Moses Malone’s name has been all over sports reports lately, with Kobe Bryant passing him on the all-time scoring list (for No. 6) last night and Kevin Love getting to his record for consecutive double-doubles.

For you youngsters who didn’t see Moses operate, you missed a treat. No player battled more than Moses, treating every rebound like it was his and dominating offensively against double- and triple-teams with guys hanging all over him in a league where the term flagrant foul didn’t exist.

And for the record: Malone played 126 games and scored 2,171 points in the ABA before coming to the NBA, so in my book, Kobe still has another year to go to catch Modine in points scored.

As for Love reaching Moses’ consecutive double-double mark, it is impressive because no one else has managed to do it in the last 30 years, and I like Love as a player, but Love is nowhere near the player Malone was.

It is similar to that streak of games last season in which Brett Myers lasted through six innings. You look at the seasons of others who did what he did, compare them to his, and you know that while his was a nice accomplishment, he isn’t in their class as a pitcher and his season didn’t match theirs either.

OK, it is a nice a run and it is especially nice to see them play some defense for a change, holding their last two foes – New Orleans and Portland – to 89 and 87 points, respectively.

But let’s not get too excited. They are still in last place in the Southwest Division, three games behind Memphis, which currently holds the No. 8 playoff seed.

Until the Rockets can put together another stretch of good play like Memphis (has won 12 of its last 16) or Dallas (has won 17 of 18), this little streak is just that: a little streak. Are they capable of that?

Remember, they won five in a row earlier this season to get to .500. But they have not been above .500 at any point this season.

They have to win one more game to be a winning team.

• • •

Here is something you can have fun with. There are 20 games left.

Should the Grizzlies go 10-10 (which won’t be easy, they have a tough schedule) the Rockets, with a relatively easy schedule, need to go 13-7 to catch them.

The Rockets’ best 20-game stretch this season? Their current one: 12-8.

Houston is also three games behind Portland, which has played two fewer games, and it trails Phoenix and Utah too.

Making the playoffs won’t be easy.

Say what you want about playing young players,but this is not the time. The playoffs are the goal; always are and always should be.

If you aren’t trying to make the playoffs, you shouldn’t charge for tickets and call it a competition. This is the NBA, not “professional” wrasslin.

The article did no such thing, but homers tend to overact to everything. Clanton can’t help it. He is a homer. Nothing unusual about that. That is what local TV expects, demands even, of its reporters.

(On a side note, when is Ch. 2 going to start having its sports reporters use props like its news reporters? I can see Clanton now, standing outside Toyota Center holding a huge letter “D” and a picket fence in talking about a Rockets’ win.)

Clanton and I had a little debate about the tone of the article earlier on Twitter. I won. Adam Wexler, morning host on 790, said so.

Shane Battier said on Memphis radio (checkout the transcript from sportsradiointerviews.com) that he learned about his trade to Memphis via Twitter. The article points out, and I agree, that one would think a player like Battier would get such news well before it was leaked to the media.

But I don’t think Morey did anything wrong, or has anything to apologize for, unless he invented Twitter.

In this media age, things like this will happen more and more. Where once a player might rightly feel wronged by finding out he was traded on Monday in Tuesday morning’s paper, now he can do as Battier did and follow the blow-by-blow on a live feed on the Internet.

Morey’s after-the-deal call to Battier could not beat Twitter. Wasn’t going to happen.

While I would have contacted Battier as soon as I knew I was going to make the move, there is nothing wrong with Morey reaching out to him after the deal became official. It isn’t necessarily his fault the deal leaked to the media and was on Twitter before he made the call.

Some of you don’t think it matters. You don’t respect athletes that much or you think they make enough money to deal with it. Money makes life easier, but when your life takes such a strong blow as a trade to another city, money is the last thing on your mind.

After the news conference to announce the trade deadline moves, I asked Morey if he had talked to Aaron Brooks. He said he had reached out to both Brooks and Battier, but was unable to get in touch with either one.

Unable to get in touch? In 2011? That to me says they didn’t answer his call because they already knew what he was calling about. News of the trades were everywhere before Morey called to thank them for their service.

I don’t blame Battier for being a bit miffed.

Battier would rather have stayed in Houston and retired a Rocket. He knows there are no such guarantees in sports. The Rockets would not offer him a contract extension. They were going to trade him wherever they could for whatever they could get and there was nothing he could do about it.

That’s one of the downsides of being an NBA player.

It would have been nice had he got word from the team instead of it flashing up on a computer screen, or on the news crawl on TV as was the case with Deron Williams.

Then again, as I said on Twitter, I wish my boss would try to call me after I learned he had traded me to Memphis. Oh, that phone call would not go well.

Hear that Mr. Lehman? I’m tired of pretending I’m not special.

]]>http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/03/charlie-sheen-might-be-winning-but-the-rockets-arent-not-yet/feed/24A quick update on the Rockets’ moves …http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/02/a-quick-update-on-the-rockets-moves/
http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/2011/02/a-quick-update-on-the-rockets-moves/#commentsThu, 24 Feb 2011 22:34:21 +0000http://blog.chron.com/jeromesolomon/2011/02/a-quick-update-on-the-rockets-moves/The bottom line is the Rockets did not get any better with two trades at the trade deadline, but they probably didn’t get any worse. At least not in the short term. They have others who could bring what Shane Battier (on the court, at least) and Aaron Brooks were currently providing.

A look at who they gave up and what they got in return.

Gone: Shane Battier. Brought here to help the team get over the hump, Battier didn’t deliver. Nice guy. Played some excellent defense at times. Could have been a glue guy on a championship contender, but Rockets needed him to be a stronger third option behind McGrady and Yao, and a legit second option when one of those two inevitably went down with an injury. He was more like a fifth or six option who was as lost offensively as he was brilliant defensively.

Welcome: Hasheem Thabeet. The Rockets inquired about every available big man in the NBA and ended up settling for Thabeet, the No. 2 overall pick of the Memphis Grizzlies in 2009. It’s almost as bad as settling for your ugly cousin as a prom date. The odds are against it, but if she gets a complete makeover and then you find out before the dance that she is adopted, it might not be that bad a night after all, right?

Gone: Aaron Brooks. Everybody’s favorite little man did not take too well to being paid less than his backup, Kyle Lowry. Of course, when Brooks injured his ankle in the first two weeks of the season, Lowry was no longer his backup and Brooks didn’t adjust too well to that.

Welcome: Goran Dragic. His claim to fame might be the virtual girl fight he and fellow Slovenian and former Laker Sasha Vujacic got into in the playoffs last year. He can get hot on occasion as is a serviceable reserve point guard. The Rockets needed somebody to fill that role after including Ish Smith in the Battier-Thabeet deal. Plus they can get out of his $2.1 million for next season if they so choose.

As for draft picks, the Rockets get Memphis’ first-round pick, which couldn’t be a lottery pick even if the Grizzlies do not hold onto the eighth playoff spot they now hold because it is lottery-protected (and according to the Commercial Appeal can’t be used before 2013), and they get Phoenix’s first-round pick if it isn’t a lottery pick. If the Suns fail to make the playoffs — they are two games behind Memphis right now — Houston would get Orlando’s pick, which should be in the bottom 7-10 (Nos. 24-30) in the first round.